17 at the UNO Park Community Center on 7/16 for a session of prehistoric themed games.

To combat the heat outside and give the Community Center’s air conditioner a fighting chance, Tim & Steve brought portable electric fans to keep the UNO Center very comfortable.

IN: Steve, Sandy & Josh, Tony, Rachel & Stuart, Tim, Armando, Zach, Chris, Julie, Nicole, Amy, Sean K, Maggie, Rob, Danny

Chomp (led by Chris)  2023 half hour drafting, pattern building and tile placement game where players collect, assemble and feed dinosaurs making sure their herbivores don’t get chomped. At the end of the game, each living and fed dino scores 1-3 points depending on its size, and the player with the highest score wins.

Archeology: the New Expedition (led by Tim) 2016 Phil Walker Harding designed combination of set collection, drafting and push your luck card game re-implementing 2007’s Archaeology: The Card Game. It was expanded to 5 players and added tent cards as well as additional treasures and monuments. Players are archaeologists, working the dig sites of the Egyptian desert. Search for the right pieces to complete torn parchments, broken pots, and other priceless artifacts. Explore an ancient pyramid in the hope of uncovering a huge stash of treasure! Trade shrewdly at the local marketplace to increase the value of your collection. Sell treasures to the museum at just the right time for maximum profit. But beware, the desert also has its dangers! A devastating sandstorm can throw your expedition into disarray, and cunning thieves lurk around the dig site ready to steal your prize discovery!

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191300/archaeology-the-new-expedition

Poetry for Neanderthals (led by Josh) 2020 competitive team word-guessing game where players can only give clues by speaking in single syllables. So, instead of saying “broccoli,” players might say something like “green thing you eat to live long and have good health.” If you mess up and use a polysyllabic word, such as “vegetable,” you get bopped on the head with an inflatable club and  lose points. The goal of the game is to score the most points by correctly interpreting words and phrases within a 90-second time limit. 

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/312786/poetry-for-neanderthals

Paleo (led by Zach) 2020 co-op where your stone age tribe combines forces to eat, hunt, develop new tech and mostly try to survive. Players try to keep the human beings in their care alive while completing missions. Sometimes a fur is needed, sometimes a tent, but these are all minor quests compared to the tribe’s long-term goal: painting a woolly mammoth on the wall so that humans thousands of years later will know that they once existed.  Our Tribe won!  

Carcassonne: Hunters & Gatherers 2x (led by Chris/Armando) 2002 stand-alone set in the stone age. Instead of cities, roads, and farms, it has forests, rivers, lakes, and meadows. Players’ meeples can represent hunters (when placed in the meadows), gatherers (in a forest), or fishermen (on a river segment). They also have huts, which can be placed on rivers or lakes to get fish from the entire river system. If you soured on the Carcassonne base game, this version may change your mind.

Stone Age (led by K-ban) 2008 worker placement game where players collect wood and bricks, break stone and wash their gold from the river. Players trade freely, expand their village and so achieve new levels of civilization. With a balance of luck and planning, the players compete for food in this prehistoric time. Players use up to ten tribe members each in three phases. In the first phase, players take turns placing their tribe members in regions of the board that they think will benefit them, including the hunt, the trading center, or the quarry. In the second phase, each player activates each of their staffed areas in whatever sequence they choose, in turn order. In the third phase, players must have enough food available to feed their populations, or they face losing resources or points. VPs, including bonuses, are added up at the end to determine a winner. We needed to go to tie-breakers. This is one of the most thematic worker placement games around and just plain makes perfect sense when playing.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34635/stone-age

Agent Avenue 2x (led by K-ban/Danny)  2024 2-player card game of bluffing and set collection. Players assume the roles of retired spies in a suburban neighborhood, outsmarting each other with cards that can score points or trigger special effects. Players utilize the “I split, you choose” mechanic to play one card face-up and one face-down each turn from a 4-card hand. Your opponent chooses one, and the divider winds up with the other -influencing both player’s strategies. Cards feature different agents and tools that impact scoring and game progress on a track, advancing the “catch me” race to uncover the opposing spy. Very addictive 15-minute filler that elicits much laughter due to the bluff/double bluff aspect.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/422732/agent-avenue

Abluxxen/Linko (led by Zach) 2014 Kramer/Kiesling card game where players take turns playing number cards, and the more cards of the same number played, the better as cards score points at the end of the game. If someone else plays the same amount of cards with a higher number, however, your cards get nicked! Stealing cards can be good, but if they can’t be used later and end the game with cards in hand, they’ll cost points.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/153065/linko

Steve